Being the Continuing Adventures of a Woman and her Trusty Kayak in New York Harbor, the Hudson River, and Beyond.
(with occasional political rants just to keep things lively!)

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Have you hugged your horse today?

And as long as I'm talking about cute critters, I might as well post this set here. I'd put one of them up on Facebook today in response to a friend who was feeling a little down and asked for some warm and fuzzy photos, then decided to put them all up. These three were actually some of my absolute favorites from our Christmas trip to Texas, I just find myself smiling everytime I looked at them, so I thought they might do the job.
This is my aunt Pat and her very sweet old mare Cindy. I wasn't even sure Cindy was still around, I'd lost track of the critters there in the years since I'd visited, but she is! I think my aunt said she's in her early 30's now. From the last visit, Poosay the cat is gone, but Jack the dog is still at the house.

Jack supervises some yard cleanup, December 2012

It was getting hard for my aunt and uncle to care for the two horses, Cindy and Copy Cat, but fortunately they have some very wonderful friends who have a lovely big spread just about a mile away who are also very involved in the Rita B. Huff animal shelter there in Huntsville and take in a fair number of animals that are for one reason or another considered unadoptable. They have good facilities for a number of horses and had told my aunt and uncle some time ago that if and when they got to the point that the horses got to be too much, they could offer them a home. If and when eventually did arrive, as my uncle has had some gathering health issues, and it's turned out to be a lovely solution, they are well cared-for, they share a big pasture with a pond with a couple of retired ponies and (I think) a few cows and then there's a nice little stable with loose boxes for chilly nights. And my aunt and uncle are five minutes away and can visit whenever they like. Cindy's a lot grayer than she was the last time I saw her, and a little more skittish (in her younger days she was always the boss mare but she's so old now that she can't keep the upper hoof the way she used to, and Copy Cat and the ponies who are also enjoying a peaceful retirement there can get away with pushing her around), but she's still still a total snugglebum.

Facebook friends may notice that I'm reusing my own little story that went with these pictures on Facebook -- lazy, I know, but it's 10:00, a book-mailing project last night somehow turned into a much later night than I'd planned on, so I'm taking the shortcut!

Yep, the distinction is by no means universal, and according to an article in Snopes about recent legislation concerning horse slaughter in the US, horsemeat consumption was even fairly common here in the US up until the 1940's - not that long ago!

I bet that if food wasn't as plentiful in the US as it is, we wouldn't make such a distinction between pets and food. That's a luxury.

As it is, I think people get so mushy about eating horses and dogs because those are the two animals that make us feel like heroes. Your dog will always tell you that you are the most fabulous person in the world, and you get on a horse and you're 10 feet tall, you're a centaur, a cowboy, a knight, you're Bellerophon, you're the friggin' Old Spice Guy!

Seriously, would that The Man Your Man Could Smell Like ad have taken off the way it did if the last reveal had shown that Isaiah Mustafa was on a Hereford?

Panda, there are lots of reasons why people love horses. A horse is probably the largest animal commonly attributed with human qualities. People who keep horses frequently talk to them as they would with a dog and expect that the horse understands their words to some extent.

But a horse is only a horse, of course, and no one can talk with a horse, of course. That is, of course, unless the horse is... wait, why does this sound so familiar?